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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23122444">Cutting Room Floor</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eliza49/pseuds/Eliza49'>Eliza49</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Bits of story I can't find a home for anywhere else, Drabbles, F/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 06:14:42</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>951</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23122444</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eliza49/pseuds/Eliza49</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>I'm posting here a few drabbles and short fics, which have ended up on my 'cutting room floor', so to speak. These are scenes I have edited out of longer fics, or scenes from fics that have been jossed and, realistically, I'm not going to finish. </p><p>These will mostly be Agents of Shield drabbles, although a few Agent Carter ones may pop up too. Here's the first one. More to follow, as I tidy up my works in progress...</p><p>Drabble One: 'Virtually In Tears' (A FitzSimmons fic, which is a rewrite of that scene - you know the one - from 'Farewell, Cruel World!' when Fitz and Jemma confront each other in the Framework. This is a little bit angsty, although not nearly as angsty as the actual episode was!)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Leo Fitz/Jemma Simmons</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>23</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Cutting Room Floor</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Please, Fitz, you have to wake up,” begged Jemma Simmons, quietly desperate.</p><p>“Get on your knees.”</p><p>She knelt down.</p><p>“Please. You don't have to do this. I love you.”</p><p>“And you mean <em>nothing to me</em>,” Leopold Fitz spat back. Then he added vindictively, “I want to hear you say it. ‘I am nothing to you.’ Say it!”</p><p>Jemma shook her head. “I can’t,” she said, weeping yet still defiant. “It’s not true. Please, Fitz, you have to <em>remember</em>. We’re in love. Even before we were lovers, we loved each other. Right back to when we were lab partners, at S.H.I.E.L.D. Academy.” Tears rolled unchecked down Jemma’s cheeks, as she knelt before Fitz and bared her soul.</p><p>“What did you say?” said Fitz suddenly, his voice still cold, but wary now too.</p><p>Jemma looked up. “We loved each other when we were friends,” she told him. “At the Academy.”</p><p>“You tell Chemistry jokes,” stated Fitz suddenly. Then he stopped, as if he did not know what it was that had made him say this.</p><p>“What?” asked Jemma, disorientated.</p><p>“You said that to me once, at the Academy,” said Fitz slowly. “You said, ‘I tell Chemistry jokes – <em>periodically</em>.’”</p><p>A desperate sound, half laughter, half sob, escaped Jemma’s lips. “Yes, yes, I did,” she exclaimed, as a new flame of hope lit inside her. “That’s right, Fitz. Please. You can do this. Just <em>remember</em>. It’s <em>me.”</em></p><p>Fitz knelt down in front of her, the gun still in his hand. Slowly, tonelessly, he replied, “And then <em>I </em>said, ‘What did the proton say to the electron’?”</p><p>Spilling more tears, Jemma fought to control her voice. “‘Don’t be so negative’,” she replied, in a strangled whisper.</p><p>Nothing changed in Fitz’s face. He spoke again, as if in a trance. “Did you hear what happened when oxygen and potassium went on a date?”</p><p>“‘It went OK’,” returned Jemma, smiling now, though she was crying still.</p><p>Then abruptly Fitz seemed to come to himself – except that this was not the Fitz whom Jemma had known since her Academy days. Slowly, he raised the gun back to her head, his face hard and angry once more. “Tell me another joke,” he demanded menacingly.</p><p>“Fitz…” recoiled Jemma, agonising fear rising again.</p><p>“Tell another joke, or I shoot you right now.” He stood up and pressed the cold barrel of the gun hard against her skull.</p><p>“Fitz, please, no.”</p><p>
  <em>“Tell. Me. A. Joke.”</em>
</p><p>“I don’t… I can’t… I can’t think of any…” said Jemma brokenly. She bowed her head, utterly defeated.</p><p>“<em>Really</em>?” responded Fitz, his expression cruel and furious. His voice was now full of insistent energy, as if he had somehow absorbed all the fight that Jemma had lost. “That’s <em>funny, </em>because <em>I can</em>. ‘What did the married biologists name their twins? Jessica and Control.’ ‘Do you know why you should never trust atoms? Because they make up everything.’” Fitz halted abruptly in his reeled-off list, and stared at her, full of venom, distrust, and something else – something that looked very like fear. “Why do I remember that?” he demanded. “I remember you telling me that. Is this a trick? <em>Did you make this up to trick me, you bitch?”</em></p><p>“No, no I didn’t,” replied Jemma, at once adamant and wretched. “You remember because we used to joke in the lab, at the Academy. We still do. It’s like I said: we’ve known each for years. In the <em>real world.”</em></p><p>“Then tell me another joke,” repeated Fitz relentlessly. “You must know lots of them,” he sneered, “if we’ve had <em>all those years together.</em>”</p><p>Jemma summoned every last shred of strength and coherence that she could muster. “A photon checks into a hotel,” she began shakily. “The receptionist asks, ‘Do you… do you need...'” she trailed off and closed her eyes, fighting for control over her voice and memory.</p><p>The prompt, when it came, sounded very close by. “‘Do you need any help with your luggage?’” said Fitz softly. He was kneeling down in front of her again.</p><p>Jemma opened her eyes. “Yes, that’s right,” she whispered after a moment. “‘Do you need help with you luggage?’ ‘No, it’s ok,’ says the photon…”</p><p>Jemma choked on an intake of breath, and when she delivered her punch line, Fitz spoke with her: “‘I’m travelling light.’”</p><p>They stared at each other. “I told you that one,” said Fitz.</p><p>“Yes.”</p><p>Fitz looked around him, then back at Jemma. “It’s all lies, isn't it? None of this is real. None of this is my actual life.”</p><p>“No,” said Jemma softly. “But <em>we </em>are real, Fitz. And we can go back.”</p><p>“God, who even am I?” burst out Fitz, in an anguished cry. “I’m not a good man… I’ve done things… Oh, God. What have I done?”</p><p>“Fitz, it’s not your fault. You <em>are </em>a good man. I <em>know you.”</em></p><p><em>“</em>No. No, I’m not. I... I don’t know if I deserve another world. I don’t think I would even know how to live in it.” Abruptly Fitz slumped forward, and Jemma caught him in her arms. Holden Radcliffe stood behind him, holding the barrel of the gun he had used to knock Fitz unconscious.</p><p>“I’m sorry, Jemma. Truly, I am. I never meant for this to happen. And I can’t undo it – if I could, I would. But the Framework is collapsing and you’re running out of time.” He dragged Fitz over to the ledge, where Daisy had re-opened the escape portal from the Framework. Radcliffe looked back at Jemma. “It’s too late for me. But you two can do your reconciliations and remorse once you’re home.”</p><p>Then he threw Leopold Fitz over the edge, and into the gaping chasm below.</p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>So, I always thought that it was very cruel, that Fitz seemed to be the only character without a single redemptive moment in the Framework. I decided to write him one. I feel that if Coulson can have unconscious 'flashbacks' to his real life (perhaps because of T.A.H.I.T.I.), then maybe Fitz could have one too (perhaps because of his brain injury at the end of Season One.)</p><p>Anyway, thank you very much for reading. x</p></blockquote></div></div>
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